Fish Turning "black?"

[xptweakerntn]

I have two flame dwarve gouramis, 3 platies, and two algae fish. Lately, it looks as if one of the dwarves is turning dark/black. Today I've noticed an area that is possibly an injury/sore/scrape. It could just be me, but is there a parasite/disease that sounds familar to any of this?

 

[DarkEntity]

Ammonia burns can be black,

how long has the tank been running, what size, whats the water stats, what filtration, how did you cycle it?

 

[xptweakerntn]

Its been running for a while now..probably about 8 weeks. Honestly...I did mess up and do a fish in cycle..however these aren't the original fish that I cycled with, I donated all of them. I've assumed that the tank is cycled, so I've not checked for ammonia for a while. I've been changing 5 gallons of water weekly, its a 55 gallon aquarium, so about 10%. I'm checking the water as you read this. The filtration is a whisper power filter 60, however I've not removed the carbon that was in the bags originally. I'm removing it as well also.

 

[xptweakerntn]

OK...so ammonia is good, how about nitrates/ites? could the burn fish as well?

 

[Topazlizz]

Only time I've seen fish turn black was from poisoning by an object that should never have been in the tank. One of the kids put a small painted Santa in a goldfish bowl once, which turned out disastrous. First black, then dead. The paint on it was abviously poisoned. Any small kids near your tank who might have dropped something in? Or some seemingly innocuous object that could be bad?

 

[flash22]

alot of fish do darken up as thay age when i got my honey gouramis thay where silver now there gone a dark honey colour and have a black bottom right upto the mouth with bright yellow top fin

My black widow tetras where the same started out silver thay have now darkened a lot

 

[xptweakerntn]

flash22, that would make sense, as it's the only fish that it is happening to, burning or a foreign object would cause it on all fish, wouldn't it? However, there is a small bottle (clear, ornamental) that used to have a sort of fragrance in it, although I MADE sure that all traces of it were gone, and there isn't and possibility of glass hurting a tank...is there??? But...I still don't think it is the bottle, but I'm sure that nothing else is in there that shouldn't be. All my other fish seem fine, however...when I say this fish "looks black", its almost as if there is this slight layer of dark material on him. He hides a lot, as if he's stressed or something. He's got me worried, perhaps if I can snap a good picture, that will help. Besides this fish, everything seems fine, water is crystal clear, not a lot of algae, all the other fish seem happy. Is it possibly a disease or such?

Oh, and just wondering...why does this post now say "moved" at the title?

 

[kribensis12]

So what is the water result's?

 

[xptweakerntn]

I'm not 100% sure of the test kit, but looks as if ammonia is anywhere between .25 -.5 ppm. The test kit I have has a very large range, but it shows it as not having much, as yellow is 0, and mine came out to be the lightest green, with dark greens being high. Temperature is about 82, as I believe that one fish may have had ich about 2 weeks ago, so I rose the temperature a bit. PH is about 7.4-7.6. Nitrites are nonexistant.

 

[kribensis12]

Do a water change. Any amount of ammonia is detrimental to fish, so you need to do probably 25% water change, and then test it tommorow and see what some up.

 

[xptweakerntn]

Hmmmm...I know that any small amount is bad, however I just assumed that it would be 0 unless something odd happened (power outage, etc), so that's why I haven' t been testing regularly. Also, what about this: What is a good way to change water. What I usually do, is take a some airline tubing, and siphon the water out, slowly. I usually have a 5 gallon bucket full of water that has perhaps leveled to room temperature, already dechlorinated. I then keep tipping off the water as the water siphons out, trying to make it slow as possibly. However, what is a good way to do this? Since I let the water sit for a few hours (temperature), I can only change about 10% of water at a time. So I'm changing the one 5 gallon bucket out now...and I'll try to get another one in tomorrow. You mention 25% tonight, so what is the best way?

 

[kribensis12]

Get a phython. It is basically a big piece of airline tubing with a apendage o the end. You stick it in the gravel, it pick's the gravel up, and clean's it off, taking the dirty water and putting it in the bicket, and then letting the gravel fall back down. It help's stop nitrite/ammonia/nitrate explosion's. Here is a pic of one: http/www.pythonproducts.com/aqprod.html
You can also use it to fill the tnak back up. They are very helpful. Mine only clean's the water, i still lug a bucket around!

 

[xptweakerntn]

Yeah, I've seen those before..however....putting water from the faucet straight into the aquarium can't be good can it? Its either cold, or if you use hot water, it is probably fool of copper and other metals (from the water heater, read something about it), and also it has chlorine in it, so how do you take care of that? I used to have a syhpon that vacuumed the bottom, but it didn't place water back in, however, I, unfortunently, misplaced that.

 

[Davo86]

as long as your adding dechlorinator then you can more or less add the water straight from the tap,
(I simply add the dechlorinator to the bucket when it is filling up with water, as long as it is a similar temp you shouldn't have any problem adding it straight away.)